Gordon Giltrap

General News

December 2018 News Update

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Gordon Giltrap and Steve Pilkington Photo by Neil Holmes

Biography launch concert Chichester

The book launch went well at St Joseph's Hall in Chichester with my friend and author Steve Pilkington.

Our dear friend Sue Martin worked her socks off to create this evening for me and the quality intimate crowd were a joy to play for. My thanks go to Sue, and to Steve for driving all the way down from St Helens via the book publishers to collect the books making it a seven hour one way journey. Talk about devotion to duty.

We have two more shows of this nature in December, Derby on the 6th and Rotherham on the 8th. All the details are on the website. It would be great if you could join us.

Thanks to Neil Holmes for the photo, he's the man who did the lovely photo on our website home page.

New JG Guitar

In the New Year JHS are launching at the NAMM show in California the new Giltrap Guitar created in memory of Jamie. I came up with the idea of recording some tracks to go on a CD that would be packaged with each guitar sold.

On the 15th of last month I went into my friend Terry's home studio to record several tracks. In all I recorded nine pieces and whittled the list down to seven. The tracks are as follows.

The Constant Friend (the piece I composed for our beloved Sue Holton for a special birthday) followed in no particular order by:

A Christmas Carol. This Father's Love. Five Dollar guitar. Sadie In May. Shining Morn. The Kissing Gate - a new little tune.

The guitar did me proud, and each track was recorded in a single take thus creating a performance.

I have asked Gavin Morrow the man who did the superb artwork for the vinyl release of The Last of England and the Heartsongs CD, to weave his design magic on this release.

Haselbury Mill

The weekend of 9/10/11 at Haselbury Mill in Somerset was the location for my teaching weekend. Do check out the website for the venue because words just cannot describe the beauty of this place, and although the weather was pretty wet and windy it didn't dampen the vibe of the weekend.

My friend Paul Roberts coordinated the whole thing so many thanks Paul. My student group on the Saturday morning was an absolute joy and how lovely to have a lady join us. Rhona came along and brought her beautiful little Martin guitar to grace us with her presence.

The evening concert at the beautifully constructed Mediaeval tithe barn went well, and my thanks go Elijah our sound man (I have a great grandson called Elijah) who did a cracking job of sound and lights and was there from 10-am that morning to set up the venues PA and create a nice onstage lighting rig from two standard type lamps, and believe me it looked fine.

The icing on the cake was having friends and family there. My lovely daughter Sadie and her partner Gordon were there along with his folks and their friends. What a privilege it was to play Sadie in May for the girl it was written for. A tear glistened methinks!

Extra thanks go to the venue's owner Roger and his assistant Minnie. We look forward to returning.

The caricature above was drawn by Mark Hadlett as a 'thank you' for the SharingDay on 20 October.

Unseen Video

My friend Roger Bucknall sent the link for this cracking film of me chatting, teaching and just enjoying myself at the RMGA weekend I was the guest at way back in the summer. I'm seen playing my beautiful new FYLDE GG signature guitar, and what a beautiful thing it is to behold, and it sounds stunning as well!

Carrie Martin Vinyl Launch

On October 26th I was the guest of our dear friend Carrie Martin at the launch of her vinyl album Seductive Sky at PeteBonner's record shop Psychotron Records in Boldmere.

It's always fun working with Carrie and she certainly played her heart out and had the luxury of having friend Jamie along on bass.

Heartsongs Cd Launch

On the 29th of November I played at my favourite guitar store PMT in Birmingham for the official public launch of the Heartsongs CD for The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I shall be reporting back along with more news next month.

Christmas tune featuring GG and Cydonia Collective

Many of you will know of my long and fruitful working relationship with my good pal Paul White.

Paul and his musical partner Mark Soden have a great gift for taking small chunks of GG riffs and turning them into nice little tunes. Here’s a fun example for Christmas. Click the link at the bottom of the page to listen.

Paul writes: " We’ve just tweaked this tune to make it sound a bit like Christmas so if you fancy putting it on your web site just for fun we’d be happy. I hope you like it as it includes some phrases you never actually played until I got my scissors out".

Antiques Man Will Farmer

This news is totally unrelated to my musical life, but Hilary and I have decided to part with some of our glass collection and general pieces of art.

For those fans of The Antiques Roadshow will know of Will Farmer their ceramics expert. Will is an old friend of ours and came to visit and view what we have, and in the New Year the collection will go for auction. It was just great to see Will again, a very nice person indeed.

Picture shows Will with Fiona Bruce.

As part of our purge on getting rid of "things" we invited our dear friend Sue Sollis to bring her special van so we could load it up with our past treasures. Hopefully it will raise some funds for her wonderful charity in memory of Tracy, deeply missed.

I would like to thank you all for visiting the site and for supporting all the gigs and the various projects that have appeared during the course of this year. There are SO many people I could thank personally but at the risk of missing anyone out I shall keep it brief.

Top of the THANKYOU list has to be Hilary followed by my family and then our lovely webmaster Sue Holton and hubby Mike. Sue has always been that "constant friend" and works so hard on the website and news pages plus many many more things.

You probably all know what a tragic year this has been for our family with the passing of my son Jamie, but I am blessed with the love of close friends and family, and that love has sustained us through the sorrow, and I'm still here doing what I can at what I know best and trying to spread a bit of love and kindness around using the gifts that nature has kindly bestowed on me.

Hilary and I wish you all health, peace and joy for Christmas and the coming year.

Now is all we know, the past has gone, the future is an illusion and one hopes for better days ahead.